Tag Archives: OtakuBites

I've decided to use this slightly weird sketch of Aeka in a towel for those times when I really don't need any particular image, but I feel like putting something here anyway. You're welcome.

The slow death of my hard drive and subsequent new hardware installation has delayed my anime recapping and other such activities for a bit, but you know what we haven’t had for a while? Otakubites, all the news that doesn’t fit to print whatsoever but can totally go here.

1. Guess Who’s A Baka?
Lately I’ve been appearing on Bakacast, now the only anime podcast I’m aware of that reviews currently airing anime on a weekly basis. If you’re watching Steins;Gate, [C], Soft Tenni, AnoHana, HanaIro (anything with “Hana” in it really), or X-Men, you may want to give it a listen, as we discuss them for entire minutes on end, I tell you. Also, if you want to hear Dustin, Jon, Larry and Glen riff on previous season hits like Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt and High School of the Dead, there’s always the old episodes- which don’t feature me at all, but hey, what can you do? Nothing’s perfect.

2. Spring 2011 Anime at the Moment
While I’ve discussed a fair amount of this on Bakacast already, for those who were curious, here’s my current stance on the shows I evaluated at the beginning of the season:

1. Nichijou: I wanted to like this, but too many of the jokes weren’t funny to me…or even jokes, necessarily. I may go back and finish this series at some point out of curiousity, but it stopped being weekly viewing pretty soon after it started. I also kind of hate Nano because she looks so much like Azumanga Daioh‘s Osaka, yet she is so NOT Osaka.

2. Soft Tennis– frequently stupid, but refreshingly absurd and sometimes a lot of fun. It reminds me a lot of Excel Saga at times; sure, it’s probably not as good as Excel Saga, but most of Excel Saga wasn’t even as good as Excel Saga, if you catch my drift. A lot of people don’t like it for being such a check-your-brain-at-the-door kind of show, but I have to say this for it: it delivered exactly what the first episode promised, something most shows I’ve watched this season very pointedly have not done.

Also, how long after the Evangelion TV series aired do we have to wait for other shows to stop parodying it so consistently? The Eva parodies on this show make me laugh, but I suspect it’s a cheap laugh.

3. Hanasaku Iroha– This was a bait and switch. While not a terrible show, the tone of the first episode was not maintained for long, and the protagonist seemed to lose about 100 IQ points between episodes 1 and 3. I’m still watching it, but if it weren’t for Bakacast I probably would have dropped it by now.

4. Battle Girls: Time Paradox: Another show that didn’t deliver what it promised. The first two episodes promised some silly, over-the-top time traveling, gender-swapped adventures, while the actual show after that point has been mostly dull and pedestrian. This wasn’t necessarily a terrible show right off the bat- the potential for something entertaining was definitely there- but it seems like everyone involved just got very lazy very quickly.

I’ve also been watching Astralotte’s Toy for some reason, which I didn’t write up at the beginning of the season because I had NO. IDEA. How to explain it. I think I may have to wait until this one’s finished airing to know what’s going on here.

3. @TheOtakusphere: It exists
Hey, did you know you can find out when this blog is updated by following @TheOtakusphere on Twitter? Lamentably, many on the internet are not yet aware of this fortuitous situation.

After years of using my personal Twitter for everything, I realized hey, I might want to tweet something about cake at some point, and that’s really not fair to those who follow me for anime and game stuff, not cake. So you can stop following that OTHER Twitter account and start following @TheOtakusphere for all your Otakusphere needs, and I promise I won’t tweet about cake with @TheOtakusphere account unless I’m discussing Yumeiro Patisserie or something. Yum, cake anime.

Normally I wouldn’t bother actually posting about Twitter (considering the whole purpose of Twitter for me is to tweet about posting), but it’s come to my attention that some regular readers of this blog had no idea there was a twitter account to begin with. So! @TheOtakusphere! I’ll just keep typing that name until I erode any subconscious resistance to it you may have.

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This is a good time to point out that I’m not a feminist. Granted, I probably agree with equity feminists on many points, but in my opinion, once you’re putting a specific gender front-and-center in the name of your ideology, you’re still too hung up on gender. It’s not that I don’t think women should get equal pay for equal work and whatnot, but if the idea of “masculinism” remains unacceptable, it seems to me that feminism should be too for the same reasons. Let’s just all be proper humanists and call it a day, I say.

I like this new policy; rather than actually watch a whole bunch of first episodes to determine what’s good, I wait a few weeks into the season until it’s been determined what the one show everyone absolutely cannot shut up about is, then just watch that one. Obviously to anyone who’s been on Twitter in the last month, that show currently is Madoka Magika. Beware, those who have not seen through episode 4; spoilers abound.

I’m hesitant to call it “The Evangelion of Magical Girl shows,” because that somehow sounds awfully pretentious, but it’s certainly an apt comparison. Mami’s last stand in episode 3 reminded me very much of Asuka’s final battle in The End of Evangelion; both fought in a state of kinetic euphoria, realizing for the first time that they were no longer alone, and the end came as an extremely brutal shock. Also, the soul searching Sayaka does before deciding to become a Puella Magi reminds me of what Shinji would be like if he ever took his head out of his ass for the five seconds it would take to think about somebody else for a change.

It probably is doing a disservice to the show, however, to just keep pointing out the Eva parallels, so I’ll just leave it at that- I think the show is ultimately going for something different. The deconstruction of the genre is obviously similar, but I don’t think the themes necessarily are.

Madoka is currently the weakest link in the show, which would bother me were it not for the fact that I think it’s very much intentional- I’m wondering if the fact that she’s actually considering using the wish she gets by becoming a magical girl, in order to become a magical girl, will create some interesting divide-by-zero sort of situation, hence the “potential” everyone keeps talking about.

I hope her potential isn’t just latent magic power that she was born with or something, because that’s REALLY boring; I’m interested in the idea that she could end up being the best magical girl because there’s nothing else in her personality to compete with it.

Also loving the ultra-modern aesthetic of the architecture on this show, it makes the “real world” look strangely cold and sterile compared to the reality marbles, complicating the good/evil dichotomy. I’m not going to say the witches are good- last time I checked, making people inhale chlorine gas is rather bad- but don’t you think it’s funny that those creatures in the reality marbles are so cute, and the colors are so warm? Meanwhile, Madoka’s house and school look like they’re part of the same giant, impersonal hospital. I’m not sure at this point whether or not that’s the result of the art direction going off and doing it’s own funky thing, or if it’s something deeper; I look forward to finding out.

2. On the Durarara!! Dub

With the first Durarara!! DVD collection hitting shelves now, the normal reviewer-type thing to do would be to say whether or not I recommend it. However, I’m currently sitting here surrounded by my full set of Durarara!! mini-figures, sipping coffee out of my Shizuo-emblazoned mug. I also have my very own “Certy” pencil case, and have written one of the wordiest blogs about the show ever. I think it’s safe to say I’m a fan of this show: do I think you should buy it? Hmm, y’think?

If you’re actually unfamiliar with the show and and are genuinely wondering whether or not to buy it, then I would direct you to Mr. Huber’s review. What interests me, and what I’ve been curious about ever since this show was licensed, is the English dub.

I was initially going to write up some impressions of the dub based on a five-episode screener, generously provided by Aniplex, but my first watch of the dub left me so ambivalent, I didn’t know what to say for a good while. Now that the show is actually, well, RELEASED, I think I’ll wait until my copy arrives and I can watch the full nine episodes properly before I get into analysis-crazy mode.

From what I’ve read, the general consensus is that the younger cast (Mikado, Masaomi, and Anri) are poor and/or miscast, while Celty, Shinra, Simon and Shizuo are good. Generally speaking, I agree with this- although I think there’s something interesting going on with Bryce Papenbrook’s performance as Masaomi that some fans may not have picked up on. Anyway, I think the problems with the dub are indicative of what happens when a dub is made for a hyper-specific, enthusiast audience; they let Izaya say “Shizu-chan” because they know everyone watching knows what honorifics mean, but he has to call Rio “Ms. Mazenda” in episode 2 because GOD FORBID he use her first name; Japanese people just don’t do that! Even though he’s speaking English!

Remember last time, when I was trying to decide whether or not to continue subscribing to Otaku USA? Well, I think I have my answer; the latest issue has a cover story about Evangelion by…RevolutionofEvangelion.org. Really? Without getting into my concerns with that particular site, they’ll just run an article that a fansite sends them? More importantly, they run it as the cover story?

Dropping a magazine because of one article is silly at best, but I haven’t really been enjoying it in general; their article on Excel Saga was of little interest to me, because I’d actually seen the show, and too much of their stuff seems to be like that- either “Hey, this anime exists-check it out!”, or something critically suspect like the Evangelion article.

I wish I could remember whether Animerica, which I loved to pieces, was actually much better back in the day, or I just wasn’t completely spoiled for otaku coverage yet. Rightly or wrongly, I certainly remember it being better.

4. Zettai Hero Project- Dropped, sort of

Dropped for now- currently replaying the early Tomb Raider games on my PSP after getting them through PSN. I do plan to eventually get back to it, but I also want to eventually play Disgaea 2 and Persona 3 Portable, both of which I have yet to touch in their console iterations. I don’t dislike ZHP, but it may be hard to get back to it with that kind of competition around.

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Welcome to OtakuBites, the first of a feature I will probably be getting a lot of use out of here- comments on various things that may be of interest to you, without going into ridiculously huge essay-lengths (hopefully.) See, I have way more ideas for stuff to blog about than I can usually get to, so rather than letting them go to waste, I figured I’d periodically do a kind of round-up post of this nature.

1. Otaku U.S.A.

I’ve gotten the last few issues of Otaku U.S.A. (it was Shinji’s Deal of the Day on Crunchyroll, woo), and it leaves me scratching my head. At this point, I’m getting it more because I want there to be at least one print magazine remaining that covers anime- for the principle of the thing- than because I actually want to read it.

One could make the argument that, as an anime blogger as well-ensconced in the interwebs as I, a print magazine is a hard sell for me- however, there are certain things I want from a print magazine that Otaku U.S.A. does not seem to deliver. In theory, the features should be more meaty and in-depth, but instead they’re numerous and spartan.

Who are they targeting here, new, young otaku- the kind who are even less likely to buy a magazine- or those of us who have been anime fans for years, if not decades? A feature on Durarara!! in the most recent issue is presumably meant for those who have yet to see the series (perhaps, those who don’t know about this whole Crunchyroll thing yet), but also contains spoilers- rather non-specific spoilers, but spoilers nonetheless. While I agree with the author’s contention that yes, Durarara!! IS as cool as it thinks it is (and then some) I don’t understand who this article was meant for. I don’t understand who most of this is meant for, except for “Fujoshi USA,” which seems like it would probably be pretty cool if I actually read yaoi.

I got one of those “please renew” cards- should I? Just for the principle of the thing? I’m honestly not sure.

2. Card Captor Sakura, Omnibus Volume 1 by CLAMP

I got the first omnibus volume of Card Captor Sakura for Hanukkahmass (or whatever), and uh…it’s fantastic. It’s wonderful. However, it’s kind of frustrating that I have nothing else to say about it, but that’s just it; there’s nothing to criticize. I could wax poetic about how great it is, but I’m probably better off doing that when all the volumes are out and I’ve actually completed it. I will say though that the lack of Mei Lin is noted and appreciated.

3. Butterflies, Flowers by Yuki Yoshihara

Speaking of manga, Butterflies, Flowers is the first manga I can remember impulse buying…in English (I’m not counting those “1 for a $1” manga they have at Book-Off.) I have the first five volumes, which I think is all that’s been released so far. What’s interesting about it to me is that it basically has the premise of Hanamaru Kindergarten– a man falling in love with a child- and shows the logical conclusion that HK was too wimpy to touch. The sexual encounters in the book are between consenting adults and non-icky (well, mostly- that probably depends on who you ask), but it’s made increasingly clear that Masayuki fell in love with Choko from childhood. Hopefully, when I finish the series I’ll have something more interesting to say about this.

I should note that it’s actually a little different from HK, since Masayuki was technically a child himself when he fell in love with Choko (although much older than her), but honestly, I don’t think it changes things much. He changed her diapers, for crying out loud.

4. Zettai Hero Project

I seem to recall gushing about this game on an episode of Japanator AM when the trailer came out. Well, ZHP was another lovely Hanukkahmas present, and I’m a little more than halfway through the story, I’d wager. It’s not bad in any way, but it doesn’t seem to have that addictiveness that the Disgaea seriesdoes. For example, the other night, I had my PSP (with ZHP ready to go) and Marcel Proust’s Time Regained next to each other on my night table, and I picked up Proust. This usually does not happen with RPGs; in fact, RPGs have ostensibly been the reason that I hadn’t finished Proust (until yesterday- thanks, ZHP!)

Also, I don’t find it as funny as everyone keeps saying it is, but that could be because I’m listening to the Japanese track. I like roguelikes, but there seems to be something missing here I can’t put my finger on. Anyone else feel the same way?

6. Arc Rise Fantasia

I’m not actually playing this- I’m peeping over Rangoric’s shoulder while he plays it. As traditional JRPGs go, it looks pretty good, but I defy anyone to understand what the holy hell they are saying in this game without having played/watched it for the last twenty hours, and even then it’s questionable. You know how they make up their own terms in Final Fantasy games, or give standard terms new definitions, like “Fayth” and “Sending” and “Focus?” Well, imagine that, only in ARF they have to say at least three of them in each sentence, and the voice actors apparently haven’t been told what any of it means, whatsoever.

I guess that compares rather favorably to FFXIII however, where I got the impression that the voice actors knew full well what they were saying, but kind of wished that they didn’t. The fact that the voice acting was uniformly good just meant that the dialogue was generally beneath the dignity of everyone involved.

Also on the plus side for ARF, the voice actor for the evil (I think?) Prince Weiss appears to be Adam West. I don’t believe this is confirmed, but the character talks with a certain cadence that is definitely reminiscent of him. Your mileage may vary, but hearing Family Guy’s crazy Mayor West as a typical JRPG villain is pretty amusing.

Also: They are conducting a War on Pronouns.

7. Winter Anime Schedule:
Where is Durarara!! Season Two already? That is all.

Well, actually I plan to watch the second season of Kimi ni Todoke, and check out that magical girl show everyone’s talking about. To be honest, I thought about picking shows to cover weekly as I went along, like a proper anime blogger, but on second thought I decided to leave that to Japanator and other intrepid anime bloggers, and do more of my own thing. I reserve the right to change my mind if anything this season actually turns out good, however.